


all my seconds, minutes, lifetimes for you and only you

by elsaclack



Series: close to home [3]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, hella late in cross-posting this, missing moment, post chasing amy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 23:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10977936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsaclack/pseuds/elsaclack
Summary: “You had me worried for a minute, there,” he tells her quietly while she lavishes attention on the faded freckles along his shoulders.(It’s code:you could have just talked to me.)She pauses, long eyelashes fluttering against her cheekbones, before tilting her head back up to peer at him. “I knew you’d find me eventually,” she says off-handedly. “I just - I freaked myself out.”(It’s also code:you and I both know I would only have freaked out more.)





	all my seconds, minutes, lifetimes for you and only you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jormaperalta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jormaperalta/gifts).



> okay so i am battling the beginnings of strep here (which is my way of saying this might very well be riddled with grammar and various other types of mistakes) bUT OH?? MY GOD?? CHASING AMY LITERALLY CHANGED MY WHOLE LIFE SO THANKS DAN GOOR THANK U FOR RUINING ME
> 
> also i'm really REALLY late in cross-posting this here but i'm just now getting caught up with everything so hopefully it's not too late to slip this under the rug lmao

He actually gets _six_ minutes later, and then four more after that, and an additional five after a brief bathroom break. They hardcore makeout after he calls her Sergeant Santiago in that deep husky voice he knows she likes, and by the time he finally flops back on his side of the bed, sated and spent, it’s with a heaving chest and an over-bright grin.

“I should’ve run away to that roof a long, long time ago,” Amy pants beside him.

His laugh is long and loud, ringing true from the pit of his belly, and the whole mattress quakes beneath them with the force. Amy rolls to her left side and curls her right arm against his chest, fingertips brushing lightly through the speckle of hair there before settling still and warm over his heart. He turns his head on his pillow to look at her full-on and is met with a look so open and vulnerable and _trusting_ , and it’s like - it’s like falling in love with her all over again, the product of a full four years of pain and heartache and butterflies and blinding love, all in the span of one trembling, uneven breath.

He covers her hand with his again the way he did back on that roof, stroking the backs of her loosely-curled fingers with the pad of his thumb, before straining toward her. She meets him in the middle for a slow, tender kiss, and when he reluctantly pulls away she tucks her head down to drop light kisses against his bare shoulder.

“You had me worried for a minute, there,” he tells her quietly while she lavishes attention on the faded freckles along his shoulders.

(It’s code: _you could have just talked to me_.)

She pauses, long eyelashes fluttering against her cheekbones, before tilting her head back up to peer at him. “I knew you’d find me eventually,” she says off-handedly. “I just - I freaked myself out.”

(It’s also code: _you and I both know I would only have freaked out more_.)

“I know.” He squeezes her hand reassuringly and she smiles, soft and thankful, and everything is alright with the world because she’s beautiful and perfect and (according to the calendar hanging two feet above his head) right on schedule.

Considering the last three months have been a rapidly-mounting tension fest that somehow always reached a head right here in their bed, and that tonight is the first time he’s seen her natural smile in about as long (the events of cop con aside), it feels like the perfect time to start poking at her buttons again.

So that’s exactly what he does.

“I honestly can’t believe you even _found_ that file, babe. Do you _live_ in the city archives?”

He can tell by the roll of her eyes and the playful smirk that steals across her face that he made a good call in his judgement of timing. “I’ll have you know I’m more proficient at finding documents in that hall than Kylie is.” She sniffs, lifts both her hand and his up to knock the heel of her hand against his chest lightly, and struggles not to laugh at his ridiculously raised eyebrows. “And I’ve looked at that document before.”

A genuine smile breaks across the playfulness and for a moment, it’s all that soft vulnerability he’s come to revel in. “You have?”

She nods, almost shy, and he’s pretty positive his heart just burst beneath their hands. “A few times, actually. Once while you were undercover with the Ianucci’s just a few months afterwards, and then…a few times while you were in Florida.”

He can tell by the redness in her cheeks that it was probably more than just a few times, and for one brief moment he has a vivid image of Amy curled up on the floor of the archives with that file clutched to her chest, crying inconsolably into Kylie’s warily understanding shoulder while Rosa waited in an idling car outside.

His grip around her hand tightens.

“Did I - did I ever tell you about what actually happened that night?” Jake asks her once he’s able to breathe properly again.

She’s openly marveling at his face, eyes wandering shamelessly over the slopes of his cheeks and the curve of his lips and the dimple in his chin, but at the sound of his shaken voice they dart back up to his. She shakes her head, looking vaguely intrigued.

“Yeah, I didn’t think I had. Remember when we were eating peanuts and - and Holt called?”

He swears he can see something shift in her eyes - it’s almost like she’s just instantaneously prepared herself for something - but it’s gone before he can really grasp it and then she’s nodding and looking at him expectantly.

“I told you he was just checking in on us, but…I lied.” Her chin lifts a degree, and he smiles at her a little ruefully. “Holt was actually calling to offer us a relief team, which means we could’ve left right after that and continued with that dumb date, but…I was having a really good time flirting with you, and those twenty seconds when you flirted back are still the best twenty seconds of my life - actually, scratch that, the best twenty seconds of my life was our first real kiss, but I’m getting off-track here." He shakes his head slightly, and she laughs a bit breathlessly. "The point is, I was flirting and you were flirting back and I actually didn’t want it to end. So I told Holt we didn’t need the relief team, and…spent way too long on that roof being way too obvious.” Her lower lip is caught between her teeth but she’s smiling, almost gloating, and suddenly Jake recognizes that little flash of emotion before - _she knew_. “Wait, you _knew_?”

She nods.

“How?”

“You just said it yourself, you were being _really obvious_ -”

“I said that for your benefit, I was actually _very_ subtle -”

“Okay, first of all, you were about as subtle as Charles is. You looked at me like I hung the frickin’ _moon_ that night - kinda how you’re looking at me now, except you’re a little more shameless about it now - and secondly, I wouldn’t call what we were doing right before Holt called _flirting_ , I’d call it you hurling peanuts at me.”

“Those were beautiful arches, it’s not my fault you tried to use your nostrils as peanut holsters, Santiago. Also, you’re a _terrible_ liar. C’mon, seriously, how’d you figure it out? I looked over that document on our way to the building earlier and it didn’t say _anything_ about a relief team being refused -”

“Captain Holt told me the next morning. Or, well, he actually thanked me and you for turning the team down.”

He must look completely flabbergasted, because she honest-to-God _giggles_ and taps the end of his nose with her left index finger. “Wait, wait - you’ve known - you knew the _day after_?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Like - like before the stripper showed up or after?”

“Oh, God, I blocked that from my memory. Before.”

He turns his face up toward the ceiling, letting out a long, low, strangled groan that makes her laugh. “I had no idea,” he mumbles as she shimmies closer and tucks her head into the curve of his neck. Her forehead bumps lightly against his temple and the weight of it - the warmth of her proximity beneath their sheets - is the most soothing feeling he’s ever experienced. “Here I am, thinking I only looked like a lovesick idiot puppy for, like, a _year_ , but it turns out it was actually closer to _two_ years -”

“Hey, stop it. You call it being a lovesick idiot puppy, I call it being incredibly respectful and patient. You have no idea how reassuring it was to know with full confidence that there would be no…entitlement issues.”

He hums and closes his eyes, turning his head to the right a few degrees to lean more into her. “I guess it doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

“I actually found the whole thing - you refusing the team and then refusing to admit what actually happened that night - _incredibly_ endearing at the time. You might even say I…developed a little crush because of it. And, for the record, I still do find it endearing. I’ve never been with anyone who -” she stops, and he feels the muscles in her forearm still draped across his torso ripple and tense. “No one has ever cared as much as you do. Really. You’re the only guy I know who would willingly _Die Hard_ off a roof for me.”

His heart is so impossibly full and for a moment all the words he’s ever known threaten to spill out of him at once - surely some of them will fall in an order that can accurately express exactly how many roofs he would jump off of or how many helicopters he would jump out of or how many burning buildings he would run into for her (which is to say _all_ of them - he would do anything, _anything_ for her) - but instead, he squeezes her hand harder still and twists his neck at an impossibly awkward angle to kiss her forehead.

And then he says, “Is it endearing enough for three more minutes?”

It earns him a snort, a sharp smack to his shoulder, and _fourteen minutes_.


End file.
